Qualcomm details Snapdragon 820 specs and teases dates

Qualcomm has spent the last few months trying to re-build the reputation that it has maintained for years, mainly because this year’s flagship offerings have been literally “in the heat” of things The company’s Snapdragon 820 has been widely teased all year long and promises to not only fix the broken legacy of the Snapdragon 810, but to also take technology a step further. For those of you curious as to what that means, the company finally detailed specs today.

Qualcomm claims that this new processor is “holistically designed around enriching visual quality and audio clarity.” In the process it claims that quick charging is enhanced, you’ll have faster download/upload speeds than previous chips, and 2x the performance of the Snapdragon 810.

There’s a full comparison chart attached, but in a nutshell we see a new X12 LTE Modem offering 3x faster peak uploads and 33% faster downloads, in addition to LTE Cat 12 support. We have the Adreno 530 GPU offering a 40% improvement in performance. We also notice the Kyro CPU and Hexagon 680 DSP, which allow up to 2.2GHz 4-bit quad-core power that’s twice as powerful and efficient as what we saw on the Snapdragon 810. Quick Charge 3.0 also makes the cut, which is 38% more efficient and four times faster than conventional charging. The new Spectra ISP also supports up to 28 megapixel cameras14-bit image sensors, hybrid focus, and multi-sensor fusion algorithms. Last, but not least, support for Wi-Fi 802.11ad, and a more enhanced 801.11ac 2×2 MU-MIMO as well.

All this sounds great and all, but for the most important question of the day, sadly Qualcomm doesn’t see a phone launching with any of this until 2016.

Jaime has been a fan of technology since he got his first computer when he was 12, and has followed the evolution of mobile technology from the PDA to everything we see today. As our Multimedia Manger, he’s been in-charge of growing our YouTube hobby into one of the biggest video channels in the industry. When he’s not building one of our videos, or filming our Pocketnow Daily, he can be found in his second biggest passion, which is running and fitness. Read more about Jaime Rivera!